


Outside of the Pines

by zuotian



Series: Coyote Teeth [5]
Category: South Park
Genre: A Study in Central Colorado Geography, Cigarettes, Comparative Geology, Hair Kink, Interpersonal Reparations, M/M, Marijuana, Strained Friendships, Urban Cowboy References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23871697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuotian/pseuds/zuotian
Summary: Kenny convinces Cartman to reconnect with Stan and Kyle; it goes about as well as he expected.
Relationships: Eric Cartman/Kenny McCormick
Series: Coyote Teeth [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572889
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	Outside of the Pines

**Author's Note:**

> this is something of a placeholder in the series. there's no real plot, i just thought it needed to happen. i also wanted to spend paragraphs describing cartman's new look lol.

Two-lane roads long since memorized, Cartman drove tight-lipped and white-kunckled, his current demeanor sharper than the preemptive annoyance he usually deployed ahead of social gatherings. They weren’t on their way to any old backwoods shindig, but to see their childhood friends, Stan and Kyle, whom he hadn’t visited since his redneck metamorphosis. 

Kenny constructed a mental timeline. It began with Cartman moving into his house and the subsequent officiation of their relationship, then progressed upon Cartman dropping out of school, after which he only went into town to work. If asked he’d say he was simply avoiding his mother at all costs, but Kenny knew that, against all odds, he genuinely liked it out here. He had become a regular menace at Kevin’s friends’ poker nights, consistently victorious lest he take pity on the guys and give them a win so they wouldn’t catch on to the fact he was counting cards. “ETC” likewise crowned the highscore list on the Pac-Man machine in Shantelle’s bar, which he frequented solely to maintain his title. Even the cashiers at the local gas station recognized his truck when he pulled into the lot, its skirt rimed with dust and dirt, the official stamp of residency. 

He’d not only staked his claim in the sticks but looked the part to boot. He wore the same thrifted clothes as the McCormicks, unable to afford anything else with the pocket money retained after giving half of each paycheck to Kenny’s parents. Kenny and his siblings all knew about his secret stipends; the three of them had squeezed into the mudroom behind the kitchen and unashamedly eavesdropped when he first prepositioned their parents. The conversation ended with a paper check slid across the table, Stuart’s gruff acceptance, Carol’s teary gratitude, and Kevin and Karen’s wide-eyed surprise. Kenny’s heart grew an additional three sizes, so large he worried it was going to explode out of his chest and douse the mudroom in blood. 

While Ted’s dismembered body froze under a hidden mountain spring Cartman matured in chrysalis, building a new life and identity for himself without any regard for the past. As a result, Stan and Kyle were totally unaware of the extent of his transformation. Kenny gave them vague updates over lunch at school, basic affirmations that he was doing pretty alright, possibly for the first time in his entire life. 

“Well,” Kyle had said last Thursday, studying his calculus homework to soften the incoming Broflovski-brand brigade, “that’s all good, but where’s the proof? I mean...” His freckled forehead creased into battalion formation beneath fiery curls. “I don’t know if I’ll believe it until I see it.” 

“We miss him, is what Kyle’s trying to say,” Stan said, the same calculus homework laid out before him, onto which he transcribed Kyle’s solutions. He glanced up at Kyle, grinning coy, boyish features partly shrouded by his black bangs. “Admit it, dude.” 

Kyle huffed a sigh of denial. “I don’t miss Cartman. I’m curious, yes, but I don’t miss him. It’s just that after eighteen years of straight bullshit his absence is duly noted. That’s all.” 

Stan balled his cheeseburger wrapper and tossed it on top of Kyle’s open textbook. “Whatever.” 

Kyle flicked the greasy wrapper away, causing it to land on Kenny’s sketchbook. “Oh--sorry, Kenny.” 

Kenny resolutely continued scrawling a nude woman, using his long hair to blockade his friends’ back and forth. “Uh-huh.” 

Kyle subsidized his lack of response. “The space I have allocated in my life for shenanigans has sat empty for nearly three months, I will admit that.” 

“So you do miss him,” Stan said. 

“I guess, if you insist on interpreting it that way!” 

“There’s no interpretation. Listen to yourself. You just said your life isn’t the same without Cartman--” 

Kenny spun his sketchbook around. “What do you think of her tits?” 

Stan studiously examined the areolas Kenny had spent all of lunch crosshatching. “Kinda lopsided.” 

Kenny gouged the underside of her drooping breasts with his pencil to emphasize their imbalance. “It’s art, not porn.” 

“She’s straight up fingering herself, bro.” 

“Artfully.” 

Kyle leaned in beside Stan. “Yeah, that’s definitely pornographic.” 

“It’s a study of the female anatomy,” Kenny said.

“Some study,” Stan scoffed. 

“I think I’ve watched the video you copied this from,” Kyle said. “What’d you do, pause halfway through and start drawing?” 

“Maybe,” Kenny relented. 

“Damn,” Stan said. “I couldn’t stop mid-whack for anything, let alone a doodle.” 

“I went back after I was done,” Kenny disclaimed. 

“What a groundbreaking creative process,” Kyle said. 

Stan shook his head. “Jesus, man. I’ve missed your crazy ass even more than Cartman’s.” 

Kenny closed his sketchbook, having exhausted the nude’s distraction potential. “I’m still here. I sit here with you guys every day.” 

“And that’s it,” Kyle said. “We don’t hang out anymore.” 

“You’re up Cartman’s butthole,” Stan extrapolated. 

Kenny’s face darkened to a deep red that rivaled Kyle’s Jewfro. “Uh--” 

“Not that we care, obviously,” Kyle added. “But does Cartman’s betterment--and whatever’s going on between you two--necessitate leaving us out of the loop?” 

Kenny deflated. A protective instinct, that which compelled him to fire a shotgun at Ted’s face, reared from the depths of his soul to contest his guilt. He’d been hiding Cartman behind the pines like a baby bird with a broken wing; now that he was ready to take flight, Kenny didn’t want to let him go. “It’s been a lot to figure out.” 

“From what you’ve told us it seems like Cartman’s figured it out,” Stan said. He and Kyle were always double-teaming Kenny, whose own partner was currently sleeping off his weekly poker night hangover. “So...”

“So it’s time to get back to normal," Kyle said. “Or, the new normal.” 

“I’ll ask him about it,” Kenny said.

He didn’t bother calling Cartman to pick him up at the end of the day, electing to spend the long walk home chainsmoking cigarettes pilfered from his brother. He was down half a pack when he opened the front door, his chapped lips stiff with cold he diffused by kissing Cartman awake. 

Cartman jolted off the living room couch, and would’ve fallen to the floor had Kenny not scooped him upright. “Fuck,” he groused, scraping his palms across his face. “Didja just get home? You shoulda called.”

“I needed to clear my head,” Kenny said. 

Cartman lowered his hands, eyes narrowed. “Something happen?” 

Kenny elbowed him back onto the couch, then plopped in his lap and started sculpting his mussed bangs. “Stan and Kyle wanna see ya. They miss you.” 

Cartman sniffed the collar of his pullover. “Were you smoking?” 

“Yup.” 

“I can’t wait until you start coughing up black tar. Talk like goddamn Ned. And whatcha mean, Kyle and Stan miss me?” 

“When’s the last time you seen ‘em?” 

“Stan, back when I worked at McDonald’s.” Cartman swatted Kenny away from his hair. “We couldn’t exactly catch up in the middle of the drive-thru.” 

Kenny relocated his icy fingers to the nape of Cartman’s neck. “Maybe it’d be good for you.” 

Cartman shivered. “What’d be good for me is if you didn’t taste like dog shit when we kiss. That’d be stupendous for my wellbeing.” 

“Then I guess I won’t kiss you no more.” 

“Fuck that.” Cartman smacked a meaty smooch on Kenny’s mouth. “You fucking nasty fuck.” 

His insults were beginning to sound more like compliments. Kenny rolled off his lap with a pronounced thump, lest his easily-excitable dick make untoward plans. “I miss ‘em, too, to be honest.” 

Cartman turned, an arm barred over the back of the couch. “Yeah?” 

Kenny leaned into the crook of his elbow. “We were all so tight. And then, you know, shit went down. But things are better now.” 

Cartman’s arm tensed. “I suppose.” 

Kenny nuzzled closer; his muscles loosened once more. “For real, I can tell. I’ve never seen you like this.” 

“Like what?” 

“Happy.” 

“Oh. Um, yeah, I guess I am.” 

Kenny rewarded his openness with another smoky kiss. Cartman sacrificed his palate, lingering to the point of breathlessness, pressing Kenny deeper into the couch. There was no telling how long they had before someone busted through the door; Kenny decided further discussion could wait. 

Cartman levied the same offense whenever he tried mentioning their friends again. It took Kenny a week to muster up the resolve to overcome the masterful diversion tactic. He posited an ultimatum: either they’d hang out with Stan and Kyle together, or he would see them alone and tell them anything they wanted to know, thereby forcing Cartman to comply if only to censor his concessions. 

“Would you please say something?” Cartman asked. “You’re freaking me out with the cold shoulder.” 

Kenny jerked out of his thoughtful stupor, unfolding his arm from the truck’s door. “I’m not giving you the cold shoulder.” 

Cartman switched hands on the wheel so he could dangle his left out the rolled-down window. Colorado born and raised, neither of them were much bothered by the wintry air sluicing into the truck cabin. “Sure looks like it.” 

“I’m thinking.” 

“What’s there ponder? According to you this is no big fucking deal.” 

“It isn’t. It’s just Stan and Kyle, dude, come on.” 

“Except we’re romantically involved.” 

“Don’t forget sexually,” Kenny snickered. This was only half true, as his penis was the only one which saw any action; Cartman kept his under lock and key in a box labeled childhood trauma. 

“There’s a shift in dynamics, is all I’m saying,” Cartman said. He checked over his shoulder to change lanes, utilizing the split-second to glare at Kenny. “I presume you blabbed about all of it already.” 

Kenny lifted his hands. “They weaseled it outta me. I got to talking and they connected the dots.” 

“Sure, Ken. Because it’s always been so difficult for you to keep your trap shut. You were practically mute our entire childhood.” 

“Now you want me to be quiet? You just told me to say something.” 

“A poor request, in hindsight. I’m gonna set you up with a bunch of programmed catchphrases. Like one of those pull-string dolls.” 

“What’d be my catchphrase?”

Cartman lilted his voice into a mimicry of Kenny’s higher-pitched tone, grated with a Southern edge inherited through class rather than locale. “I’m white trash and I’m in trouble. I like big fat titties and big vaginas. I ain’t done nothin’, Ma, swear on the Bible--” 

“I ain’t talk like that, you fucking--” Kenny’s defense broke down into laughter. “Okay, that wasn’t half bad.” 

“I know you, dude.” Cartman reoriented his grip on the wheel to pat Kenny’s knee. “I’ve probably heard you talk more than anybody alive.” 

Kenny grasped his wrist, anchoring the weight of his hand. “That’s a fact. Consider yourself lucky, babe.” 

An unbidden giggle rose from Cartman’s mouth at the endearment. He passed it off with another barbed wire compliment. “Yeah, I’m so damn lucky. Got a first row seat to a case study in crazy.” 

“You oughta be crazier for sticking with it.” 

“I never I said I was sane. I’m a full blown lunatic. You know that, right?” 

“You’re talking about making me into a doll. I know.” 

“Good. On the bright side, if I get thrown in the loony bin you’ll be right behind me.” 

It was times like these Kenny wanted to unbuckle his seatbelt and give Cartman roadhead, but Cartman’s self-imposed celibacy forced him to get creative. He rubbed Cartman’s pulse point under his thumb, smiled slow till his eyes squinted like you were supposed to do with cats, as Cartman had told him once during a reminiscent tangent on Mr. Kitty. 

Like a cat, Cartman briefly acknowledged Kenny, then darted his eyes back to the road. His hand slid up Kenny’s thigh and squeezed, nonsexual in intent and one-hundred percent sexual in effect. Kenny gently laced their fingers together before he detected the heat funneling toward his crotch. “I love you.” 

“Jesus!” The truck lurched. Cartman straightened the wheel, his ornery profile backlit by the premature sunset. “I, uh, um. You too. I love you too.” 

“Nice,” Kenny drawled. 

Cartman snorted. “Just kidding. I hate you.” 

They transitioned from the outskirts’ aimless gravel to blacktop gridlocked in picturesque neighborhoods. Cartman clipped past minivans with superiority complexes, then ricocheted into a celebratory 60 MPH once they escaped town. From then on it was a straight shot down Red Hill Pass, where pink granite sloped inward from the surrounding bluffs dredged up by uplift activity that occurred miles away millions of years ago. Forced to immigrate in compliance with Randy’s business ventures, Stan lived in the northwestern foothills of Mosquito Range, equidistant to town as the sticks which were situated in the forests sprouting along Sheep Mountain’s eastern valley. Kenny felt a bit entombed, hemmed in on all sides by rock instead of trees, as Cartman fidgeted for reasons psychological rather than geological. 

The granite surrendered to open fields and a narrow side road. A white picket fence demarcated the expansive Marsh property, eventually parting to give access to a winding driveway. Cartman piddled down its length and parked in front of the bougie ranch home financed by Randy’s marijuana fortune. Postponing a rematch with Carol’s scissors, he had developed a very sexy habit of shoving his hair around. His overgrown bangs obscured his forehead and eyebrows, flouncing at the ends in little swoops that were repeated in the shaggy, uneven locks covering his ears and neck. He scratched his fingers through them as the truck clunkered to sleep. “This was a bad idea.” 

Kenny ceased tracing the whorls in his hair. The bumper of Kyle’s sleek sedan greeted him through the windshield, intersected by the coyote tooth still swinging from the rearview mirror. He unbuckled his seatbelt and scooched across the bench, one leg canted to the floor, Cartman’s seatbelt latch digging into his hipbone. “It’s just the guys. They’re still them. You’re still you.” 

Cartman dropped his hand back to the keys sitting in dead the ignition, as if to peel out of the driveway. “I dunno, Ken. It won’t be like old times.” 

“You’re different, sure.” Kenny smoothed his hair into place. “It’ll be better. You’ll see. So’ll they.” 

“Kiss me again,” Cartman besieged. Kenny obliged. “Again,” he repeated. “Again. Again--” 

Kenny laughed into the frumpled collar of his extra-large flannel. “Ask me one more time and I’ll leave a hickey.” 

“Maybe you should. Or maybe I should don a rainbow thong and nipple tassels, hasten the announcement of my sexual proclivities.” 

“You don’t have to announce anything. They already knew, dude. We all did. Way back when we were kids.” 

Cartman removed the keys from the ignition, silenced their jangling in the palm of his hand. “So I’m a huge, flaming homo, that’s what you’re saying?” 

Kenny withheld from making a shitty joke. Cartman had wrapped himself in tripwire--one wrong move and he’d lose a limb, or at least necking privileges. “No, I’m saying they’re your best friends. There’s nothing to worry about.” 

“Those screwballs aren’t my best friends. You know who’s my best friend?” Cartman’s seatbelt rippled between them with a frictional hiss. “The guy who owns the other half of my best friends forever necklace!” 

Kenny leaned against the radio; Cartman’s coyote tooth grazed his shoulder. “What if I told you I lost it?” 

“I’d break up with you, except for the fact I know you keep it all nice and safe in your dresser.” 

“Only ‘cause I haven’t gotten around to making a shrine yet.” Crisis averted, Kenny flicked the cowlick off Cartman’s crown. “I need a lock of your hair first.” 

Cartman slapped him away. “No way. You’ll do some freaky voodoo shit. I’m cursed enough as it is.” 

“You ain’t cursed, Eric.” 

“I’m absolutely cursed. I’m hexed beyond belief. Evidenced by the shit show about to commence.” 

Kenny wiggled backwards and popped the passenger side door. “Let’s get it over with, then.” 

The truck bounced on its axles as Cartman reluctantly followed suit. They reconvened at its hood, where Kenny kissed him one more time for luck and for naught. Cartman closed off out in the open, impenetrable to enemies and allies alike; he dismissed Kenny’s offered hand and stomped onto the wrap-around porch, only to freeze on the welcome mat.

Kenny clambered up behind him. “Eric, seriously.” 

Cartman’s shoulders hunched. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Ring the doorbell and tip my hat? Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yes, it’s me, Eric Theodore Cartman, here to regretfully inform I’m still alive--” 

Kenny shoved him aside, wrenched the screen door open--Cartman scampered backwards to avoid busting his nose--and waltzed into the living room equally bougie as the house’s exterior. “Hey, guys.” He blindly reached for Cartman’s wrist and lugged him forward. “Look who I brought.” 

Stan and Kyle jumped off the couch in tandem, ejecting a simultaneous “Dude!” 

Cartman stood in pivoted contrapposto, his upper half stiff as a board, his feet pointing toward the front door. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yes, it’s me--” 

“Cut the crap, Cartman,” Kenny ordered, an inverse of his previous nomenclative bargaining chip--Cartman’s first name melted on his tongue like candy nowadays, spoken too often for it to hold any weight, whereas his surname sustained its brusque quality--and pushed him off his soap box. “Be nice.” 

Cartman stumbled forward with a muted curse. He shifted into cowboy posture, eerily reminiscent of Kevin, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. “So.” 

“So,” Kyle said.

“So...,” Kenny said. 

“Oh my God,” Stan said. He hopped over the coffee table and wrestled Cartman in a hug. 

“Jesus, Marsh,” Cartman griped. “Don’t get all sentimental on me!” 

Kenny and Kyle easily met each other’s gaze over the top of their shorter friends’ heads. Kyle gnawed his bottom lip; Kenny merely shrugged. 

Cartman thumped Stan’s back. “Alright, okay, I’m here, in the flesh. You can let me go now.” 

Stan parted by a centimeter, keeping hold of his biceps. “You’re not gonna go into exile again, are you?” 

“I wasn’t in fucking exile,” Cartman scoffed. 

Kyle stepped forward. “Yeah-huh.” 

Cartman leveled him a room temperature leer. “Kyle, if I were to embark on a sabbatical it sure as shit wouldn’t be at Kenny’s place. You can’t believe the redneck crazy I’ve witnessed.” 

“Try me,” Kyle wagered. 

Stan nodded. “We wanna hear all about it. Kenny doesn’t tell us shit.” 

Cartman’s brow rose. “Oh, really? Because I heard you two’ve already deduced the most pertinent information!” 

Unfortunately for him, Kyle was able to cut his defensive, ostentatious vocabulary down to the bone. “You mean that you’re together? Because we honestly don’t give a flying fuck.” 

Cartman bodily shrugged out of Stan’s grip. “I imagined it’d be a pretty shocking development!” 

“Are you kidding me?” Stan asked. He glanced at Kyle, then Kenny. “Is he serious?” 

Cartman blushed, nostrils flared. “Ey!” 

Kenny laid a hand on his shoulder. “Chill, man.” He narrowed his eyes at Stan and Kyle, who knew better than to immediately initiate interrogation. “We can talk later.”   
  
Stan helmed the armchair and gestured at the couch with his foot. “Pop a squat, guys.” 

Cartman encompassed two-thirds of the sofa, Kyle squeezed beside him, and Kenny sat on the floor, an age-old configuration differentiated only by the way Kenny positioned himself directly between Cartman’s calves. Cartman looked down in surprise, then briefly passed his fingers through Kenny’s hair while Stan and Kyle were distracted booting the Xbox. His legs unwound against Kenny’s sides, both their heels cocked beneath the coffee table, Cartman’s larger Vans dwarfing Kenny’s tattered Converse. 

They ported in the safe harbor of Call of Duty, taking turns playing online co-op, the context of the evening forgotten in the throes of battle. Paired off according to play style, Kenny and Stan dicked around teabagging fallen enemies whereas Kyle and Cartman discussed strategy in the form of expletive-enriched soliloquies. They were the only two who could match each other’s diction. Back home nobody understood half of what Cartman said besides Kenny, only because he had enough context clues to discern a rough translation; but Kyle was Cartman’s intellectual equal, and therefore his greatest mortal enemy. 

“You kosher-shit-eating fucking Jew,” he screeched as his onscreen militant crumpled in a spray of blood. “You were supposed to fucking cover me!” 

“Some dude jumped out behind me, ass-licker,” Kyle retorted, falling to his own demise. “Don’t camp like a lazy douchebag!” 

The deathmatch’s scoreboard fell across the TV, reporting their team’s heavy losses. Controllers tossed aside, they twisted to face one another.

“I’m a tactician,” Cartman said. “The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Have you heard of it, Kyle?” 

“Have I heard of the greatest military treatise of all time?” Kyle asked. “Hmm, let me think about it!” 

Kenny rolled out from under Cartman’s legs before he got choked in the crosshairs of their Asiatic debate and bounded after Stan, who had already made a beeline for the kitchen and was currently rooting the fridge. “Some things never change, huh?” 

Stan smirked over the top of the fridge door. “Yeah, seems like it.” 

The fridge was covered in photos of him and Shelly through the years, magnetized by alphabet letters in the same arrangement as always. A new addition had appeared in Kenny and Cartman’s absence: a glossy miniature of the senior homecoming portrait Kenny glimpsed on the living room bookshelf, depicting Stan and Wendy trussed in matching violet hues.

Stan rose, four sodas pinched in his fingers calloused by guitar frets. “Wanna smoke?” he asked, under the mutually implicit understanding Kyle and Cartman would be arguing ancient battle tactics long enough for them to split a bowl. 

Kenny refocused on the three-dimensional version of his friend, dressed in an Aspen hoodie and athleisure joggers rather than a periwinkle button down and black slacks. “Sure.” 

Stan passed a regular Mountain Dew for Kenny and a Double Dew for Cartman. “Cool.”

They returned to the living room where Kyle and Cartman were slumped low on the couch, too engrossed in the thick of another conquest to notice their elbows were touching. 

“Top of the stairs,” Cartman said. “Right around the corner.” 

Kyle performed a tuck-roll-shoot maneuver. “Whew, thanks.” 

Cartman noticed Kenny pussyfooting in the periphery and gave him a curious side-eye. “What’s up, babe?” He instantly straightened out of his relaxed lean, realizing his slip-up. “Uh--” 

“We’re going out back,” Stan explained, placing Kyle’s soda on the coffee table as Kyle continued unaffectedly gunning down foes. 

Cartman sniffed. “Pfft. I don’t care. Fuck off, Kenny.” 

Kenny strode forward and pressed the cold Double Dew against the crook of his neck. “Fuck off, Cartman.” 

He reeled into the couch cushions. “What the hell--” 

Kenny stilled him with a kiss on the cheek. “Relax. It’s all good.” 

“Awww,” Stan crooned. 

Cartman stole the can out of Kenny’s hand. “Don’t patronize me, Marsh.” 

“I’m not,” Stan said. “You guys are cute.” 

“This is a safe space,” Kyle promised. 

Cartman chugged his soda and delivered a righteous burp. “I hate you guys.” 

Kenny couldn’t help petting his hair. “Isn’t this fun?” 

“It’s awful,” Cartman said, tolerating the trespass. “I forgot how terrible you all are. Especially you, Ken. I’d recommend you get out of my sight.” 

Kenny obeyed his encrypted request for distance and followed Stan outside to the back of the house. Their footsteps trailed behind them as they traversed the adjacent lot furnished by an open-faced tractor stable, dilapidated barn, and tin-roof shed, all closed up for the off-season.

“I dunno if I should be offended he’s so weird about it,” Stan said, his speech paired with matching puffs of air. “I mean, what’s he think we’re gonna do? We’ve never said anything about you being, well--whatever you are.” 

“That was me,” Kenny said. “This is him.” 

Stan punted an errant rock that pinged against the shed and settled in the frost with a whisper. “So?” 

“So it’s different. I’ve never tried to be anybody else.” Kenny stuffed his soda in his jacket pocket, then rubbed his hands to regain sensation in his numbing fingertips. “Cartman’s been pretending his whole life. I don’t think he ever gave himself the option to figure out who he is. It’s still new to him, too.” 

“Huh,” Stan grunted. 

Kenny squinted. “What?” 

“It’s just--funny, kind of. I never pictured him living out there at your place.” 

“Me neither.” 

“He looks good, though.” 

“Real good. Did you see his hair?” 

Stan laughed. “Uh, yeah.” 

Kenny bit his lip, tampering a smile. “It’s so hot.” 

“Jesus Christ. I can’t, like--I’m not up for this, dude.” 

“Bullshit! I’ve listened to you go on about Wendy for years--” 

“Wendy isn’t one of your best friends. I can’t think of Cartman that way. It’d be like if Kyle was into Shelly.” 

“No, it’s not. That’s disgusting. Cartman, though--he’s fucking tasty.” 

Stan shouldered the barn’s side door open--rotted with age, it nearly broke off its hinges--and stepped into the decaying structure. “Let’s just get high, okay?”

Kenny slunk after him. “Fine, whatever.” 

The barn didn’t serve Randy purpose, so he’d given it to Stan to do with as he pleased. Band posters and road signs stolen curbside after being downed by car accidents or inclement weather plastered the walls; a few chairs centered around a chestnut table decked in weed paraphernalia inhabited the dusty floor. The rafters were strung with Christmas lights--kind of gay, in Kenny’s opinion, but he couldn’t deny the atmospheric affect. The walls didn’t offer much insulation, allowing wind to whistle between loose, gap-toothed boards. Stan clicked a space heater then the lights, dousing the barn in warmth both artificial and material. It was a cool crib. Kenny had missed it--and Stan, and Kyle, and Cartman in relation to them. 

“Feels good to be back,” he said, dropping into a frozen lawn chair. “I didn’t realize how long it’d been.”

Stan hummed across from him. “Three fucking months, dude.” 

Kenny puffed his cheeks. “Oh, yeah.” 

Stan twisted the top off his grinder. The pungent odor of fresh, homegrown, top-tier marijuana cut through the chilly air. There were many cons to being Randy Marsh’s son, but it had its perks, too. Kenny’s mouth watered. He hadn’t smoked in ages, couldn’t stand the weak shit Kevin bought after the taste of Tegridy. 

Stan packed his favorite bowl, a curvilinear, iridescent piece, and extended it across the table. “You can have greens.” 

“Fuck yes.” Kenny fished his pockets for his lighter--also stolen from Kevin--and took a hit. The weed burned slow, fizzling orange to black. He swallowed a lungful, too excited, and shoved the bowl into Stan’s hands. 

“I don’t remember you were that much of a pussy,” Stan jibed. 

Kenny fought the urge to cough, tendrils of smoke leaking from his pursed lips. “Suck my dick.” 

Stan sparked an expert crescent. “Don’t let Cartman hear you say that.” 

Kenny finally gave in and started hacking. “Asshole.” 

“Yeah,” Stan agreed. He held the smoke at the back of his throat, let it unfurl in lazy swirls. 

“Goddamn.” Kenny wiped his brow, already growing fuzzy. “I’m outta practice.” 

“Drink your soda,” Stan advised. 

“Oh, right.” Kenny cracked his Mountain Dew open, then lit a cigarette to temper his buzz with nicotine. The smoke raked his tongue, heavy, dark, familiar, and dissipated to reveal Stan’s disapproving frown. 

“Where’d you get those?” he asked, surrounded by his own familial vice.

“Kevin. What’s it matter?” 

“Does it have to do with Cartman?” 

“Kinda. Not because of him, though.” 

Stan hit the bowl again and aimed his exhale at the meager wisp wafting from Kenny’s hand. “How’d that all start, anyway?” 

Kenny’s body temperature did a complete 180. Psychosomatic heat swamped his limbs, clogged his skull, collected in his armpits. He divested his jacket, exposing his damp pullover to the cold. “Drop it, dude.” 

Stan scowled. “I’m not gonna drop it. Do you know we tried texting him, calling him? For weeks. For nothing. And you wouldn’t tell us anything--” He glanced away. The wind snaked inside of the barn, pulled his gaze back. “What the fuck happened? Why the fuck would he move out of town, drop out of school, not talk to us for months?” 

Images flashed behind Kenny’s eyes--Ted’s face blown apart by a bullet, Kevin’s grim countenance, the blurry pines as they drove deep into the mountains to dispose of the body. He smoked out the memories with another drag. “You have no fucking clue.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I thought we were better friends than that. Guess not.” Stan sighed, anger diminished to disappointment. “Whatever it is, me and Kyle could’ve helped. We were worried sick, man.” 

Kenny remembered what his father had told him when he was in the same position as Stan. “It ain’t my place to say.” 

“What’s that mean?” Stan pressed. “Was he running away from his mom?” 

The door banged open. Kenny melted into his seat as Cartman stomped inside. “Jesus, it’s freezing,” he bemoaned for the sake of complaining. 

Stan hastily picked up the bowl, cleared the air by filling it. “Mom won’t let us smoke in the house.” 

Cartman scrunched his nose. “You can’t smoke indoors on a pot farm?” 

Kyle arrived behind him and fastened the door back to its frame. “That’s the idea. It’s the only safe zone.” 

“Can’t blame her for trying.” Cartman claimed the chair beside Kenny’s, eying his cigarette. “Really? Must our friends be exposed to your distasteful addiction?” 

Kenny ashed on top of his shoe. “I can step out, if it’s so goddamn bothersome.”

“Or you could quit,” Kyle suggested. 

Cartman pointed at him as he sat down next to Stan. “Yeah, think of the Jew. He’s asthmatic. You’re killing him.” 

Kenny stood. “Fine, I’ll leave--” 

“Whoa, hey--” Cartman tugged him, not back into his chair, but into his lap--tore the cigarette out of his mouth, studied him, then glared at Stan. “What’d you do?” 

“Nothing,” Stan said. “We were just talking. Right, Kenny?” 

“Yeah,” Kenny said. 

“I call baloney,” Cartman said. “Kyle, do you concur?” 

“I abstain,” Kyle said. 

Kenny plonked his head on Cartman’s shoulder. “Let it go, Eric.” 

“I’m not letting go of shit,” Cartman said. “My grip on this is ironclad. What the hell were you talking about?” 

“You,” Stan said. 

Kenny fumbled for his pack of cigarettes on the table, lit a one, and sucked a desperate pull. Kyle wrested the bowl from Stan and did the same. Their conjoined smoke did nothing to deter either of their friends.

“If you wanna talk shit, say it to my face,” Cartman said. “Not my fucking boyfriend.” 

“I wasn’t talking shit,” Stan said, unmoved by Cartman’s acknowledgement of his relationship and therefore sexuality. 

Kenny wormed out of Cartman’s grasp and returned to his own seat. “Even if we were, it doesn’t matter. I’m not just your boyfriend, Eric. I’m Stan’s friend too. We can talk about whatever the hell we want.” 

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Cartman huffed. “You know what?” He snatched Kenny’s cigarettes and stuck one in his mouth. “I’m feeling a little stressed!” 

“Go ahead,” Kenny said. 

Cartman lit up, pinched the filter between his fingers, and blew at Kenny’s face--then coughed, eyes watery. “Oh, Christ--” 

Kenny levied a smoother attack. “Pussy.” 

“Stop it, both of you,” Kyle reprimanded. “This is so fucking stupid.” 

Cartman regarded his cigarette. “How’s it feel to watch me give myself cancer, Ken?” 

“I don’t care,” Kenny said. “It’s your life.” 

“It is my life,” Cartman assented. “Mine and mine alone. So don’t go airing my dirty laundry out to Marsh.” 

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Stan said, “besides I’d have to ask you what happened. So what the fuck happened?” 

“Stan,” Kyle warned. 

Stan slapped the table. “No, I’m fucking pissed! You don’t get to do that, Cartman! You don’t get to come back and expect everything to be normal!” 

“What, you thought I’d think we’d get in our jammies and put on Terrance and Phillip and have a grand old time?” Cartman sneered. “We’re so far out of the realm of normalcy, nothing will be the way it was ever again.” 

“Then tell us why! What changed? What--” Stan gasped, overspent; it wasn’t in his nature to be angry. “What happened, dude? What made you leave us?” 

Cartman expunged punchy smoke. “Spare me the waterworks.” 

Angry tears gathered at the corner of Stan’s eyes. “Fuck you!” 

“I think,” Kyle ventured, “that we all need to calm down.” 

Stan rose from the table and stormed outside. The door echoed shut, cobwebs torn off the rafters in his wake. 

“What a bitch,” Cartman said. 

“He’s upset about you, jackass,” Kyle snapped. “So am I.” 

“Could you find it in your bleeding hearts to give me a little privacy?” 

“Oh, three months reprieve wasn’t enough?” 

“Whatcha think I am, on vacation? I didn’t wake up one day and decide I’m gonna add to the McCormicks’ burdens for the fun of it.” 

“You aren’t a burden,” Kenny said. 

“Shut the hell up, Kenny,” Cartman snarled. “You’ve said goddamn well enough.” 

“You shouldn’t talk to him like that,” Kyle said. “Or Stan, or me. We just want to help.” 

Cartman chucked his cigarette. Kenny tracked its embers down the wind’s upstream toward his bouncing knee, which he stilled with his hand. “Eric, he’s right.” 

Cartman bristled. “Whose side are you on?” 

“Yours,” Kenny promised. 

Something in his tone of voice made Kyle rise. “I’m gonna...go find Stan.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Cartman groaned once he’d left. “I told you this was a bad idea.” 

“It was going pretty good, I thought,” Kenny said. 

“Until you and Stan came out here. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone with him.” 

Kenny’s lips pursed. “Next time I’ll ask permission.” 

Cartman rolled his eyes. “When have I ever dictated what you can and cannot do? I’m not mad at you--I’m mad at Marsh.” 

“Why? He had a point.” 

“No, he didn’t. He’s not privy to my personal life.” 

“After being friends for eighteen years?” 

Cartman jiggled Kenny’s hand off his knee. “What about you, huh? You gonna tell him you fucking killed somebody?” 

“Wasn’t planning on it.” 

“But you expect me to share my crap with the class.” 

Kenny tucked his hair behind his ear, opening his profile to Cartman’s view. “What if I told them, though? That I killed Ted.” 

Cartman leaned forward. “What good would that do?” 

“Nothing. It’s just a pretty big secret to keep.” 

“I thought you weren’t fucked up about it.” 

Kenny looked him in the eye. “I’m not. I don’t regret it a bit.” 

Cartman averted his gaze, touchy as whenever they got to the subject of Kenny’s homicidal act. “Then why say anything?” 

“They deserve to know. Same as they deserve to know why you left.” Kenny staunched his cigarette under his heel, spine bowed. “We’ll always be hiding it. And they’ll be wondering about it. If we don’t tell ‘em, why are we even here?” 

“Because you wanted me to come,” Cartman reminded. “Because you told me it’d be better.” 

“It will be,” Kenny soothed. He slipped out of his chair, back into Cartman’s lap, and pressed their lips together. “But we can’t move on until we move past this shit.” 

Cartman spread his legs, braced Kenny’s waist in his hands. “You taste disgusting.” 

Kenny corralled his bangs corralled under his palms. “You didn’t have to come. You could’ve said no.” 

Cartman’s eyes narrowed, his glare not so intimidating when underlined by an adorable blush. “You swindled me into compliance.” 

“I wouldn’t have told ‘em shit. You know that. So why’d you say yes?” 

“I dunno.” 

Kenny quirked an eyebrow. “Can’t you just admit that you want your friends back? That maybe you want their support?” 

“Yeah, Stan’s sure acting real supportive.” 

“You ain’t giving him much to work with.” 

“Okay, let’s say I tell them. They’ll be fucking weird about it.” 

“Weird how?” 

Cartman lolled his head back, besieging the heavens for patience. “Emotionally speaking. They’re not like you. They give a shit.” 

“Hey, now.” Kenny’s hands fell to his shoulders. “I give a shit.” 

“I mean, like--you aren’t up my ass.” 

“I sure would like to be,” Kenny smirked. 

“Kenny, please.” Cartman closed his eyes. “Remember when I told you, how you said it didn’t change anything between us?” 

“Yeah,” Kenny murmured. “It still doesn’t.” 

“Murder aside,” Cartman quipped. He blinked against the Christmas lights strung above them. “It’ll change everything between me and them.” 

“It’s already changed.” Kenny searched within the strands of hair netting his eyelashes to find his irises. “There’s no going back, like you said. Anyway, Stan thinks you just ran away from your mom. Kyle probably thinks you’re being an asshole. Don’t you wanna set the record straight?” 

“Let ‘em think whatever they want.” Cartman twisted Kenny’s pullover in his hands. “Why are you so dead set on this?” 

Kenny thumbed past the collar of his coat to the soft flesh between his neck and shoulders. “Because it’d do you some good. The only people who know are me and Kevin, and Kevin’s thick as a log. I can’t be the only one you turn to.” 

“So I’m stressing you out,” Cartman wrongly deduced. “You could’ve told me--” 

“Babe,” Kenny whispered; Cartman shut up at that, shocked into silence as Kenny knew he’d be. “You know I gotcha. I just think you could use some outside help.” 

“Outside?” Cartman questioned. 

“Outside of us,” Kenny clarified. “Outside of the pines. Outside of the family. You oughta come out eventually.” 

“Haha,” Cartman intoned.

Kenny nudged his jaw. “Not as in gay, idiot. As in the new you. The real you.” 

“I don’t even know who the real me is.”

“The real you flips burgers to help my parents make rent, talks Karen off the edge when nobody else can, plays a mean poker hand...” Cartman’s grip loosened, allowing Kenny to bend toward his ear. “Sexy as hell driving your big, dumb truck--” 

Cartman’s thighs twitched. “Ken!” 

Kenny straightened. “Look, you don’t need to tell the whole story, but you have to tell them something. They’re seriously worried.” 

Cartman raked his hair yet again. His hands remained on the top of his head, arms akimbo around his ears, hoarding spatial ground to make up for his lack of conversational ammunition. “I don’t owe them anything.” 

“Yes, you do. Or we can leave, but you’ll’ve lost them, too, with everything else.” Kenny palmed his soft belly. “I’d pick you, you know.” 

Cartman sighed. “I’m not gonna make you do that.” 

“Then, what?” 

“Then gimme another smoke.” 

Kenny twisted for his pack, smacked two cigarettes into his palm. “I’m ‘bout out.”   
  
“We’ll stop for more on the way home.” 

“You’re gonna enable my distasteful addiction?” 

“I’m gonna enable my fist at your balls.” 

Kenny winked, placing a cigarette between his lips. “I like it rough.” 

“You want rough? I’ll give you rough.” Cartman socked Kenny’s shoulder and stole his own smoke. “Light?” 

Instead of passing the lighter Kenny lent down and pressed his cherry to the end of Cartman’s cigarette, an old trick he practiced with Tammy Warner, then slid to his feet and donned his jacket. “You good?” 

“Fuck no.” Cartman followed him upward, joints crackling louder than his chair. “I’m not doing this for me, or them. I’m doing this for you.” 

Kenny nosed around Cartman’s cigarette, kissed the corner of his smoky lips. “Thanks.” 

Cartman poked his side. “Yeah, yeah.” 

Kenny grasped his hand and guided him outside. Kyle’s carrot top flared across the lot like a crimson beacon. They tracked it down between decommissioned farming equipment, came upon an alcove behind the shed. Kyle and Stan turned in tandem, seated on two overturned crates. The dead, snow-sodden fields spread outward behind their backs toward Mosquito Range’s distant, ghostly peaks. 

“Cartman,” Stan said, then, softer, “Eric, listen, I’m sorry--” 

“Me too,” Cartman muttered. 

Kyle jolted. “You are?” 

“Yeah.” 

Stan sniffed, his eyes ringed pinker than he was high. “It’s okay--” 

“No, it’s not.” Cartman solidified, armed with his new persona toughened by grit and gravel, an urban cowboy partitioned in smoke. The wind fruitlessly ruffled his bangs, buffeted his coat and flannel, chapped his cheeks. He widened his gait, tapped his cigarette, struggling to come up with a script. Kenny squeezed his hand and he continued, improvisational, “Nothing’s okay. I’m not okay.” 

Kyle and Stan shared a glance. “This is a safe space,” Kyle said, lacking his earlier sarcasm. 

“Yeah, man,” Stan said. “We’re here for you.” 

“Don’t,” Cartman said. “Don’t get corny. I can’t fucking take it.” 

Kyle schooled Stan’s impending rebuttal with a touch to his forearm, then looked at Cartman. “What happened?” 

Cartman told them. 

**Author's Note:**

> not sorry about the vague ending... we all know the story and this was more about the build up. in cases like these i leave the event's specifics up to the reader. 
> 
> given that south park is supposedly located where the real fairplay is, i've been spending a lot of time studying central colorado on google maps. besides that here are other references. apologies to any locals who may come across this fic; i undoubtedly got some stuff wrong. 
> 
> https://cusp.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Park_County_Water_Report_F.pdf
> 
> https://www.summitpost.org/mosquito-range/171048
> 
> https://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/colorado/park-co/ridge/reinecker-ridge/
> 
> update 6/14/20: here have some shitty art 


End file.
